The Research of Human Genome Project

The research of Human Genome project
The completion of Human Genome Project took 13 years in total; it started in October 1990 and finished in 2003. This project has a controversial start, because many people didn??™t believe that the technology they have is advance enough to sequence the human DNA, not even a bacterium. However, the project is successful and it ended 2 years earlier than it was planed to. The first accomplishment is the rough draft of the human genome; it was completed in 2000, in February of the next year, the working draft is done,

The HGP has many purposes, it includes:
??? Identify all the genes in human DNA, which is around 20,000-25,000.
??? Find out the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs of human DNA,[1]
??? Store all the information found in a database.
??? Develop more advanced tools for analyzing data.
??? Bring the advanced technology to private sectors and use them.
??? Address issues regarding the HGP project in social, legal and ethical aspects.
Application of HGP
The technology of HGP has been applied in many fields, including Medicine, Forensic Identification, and energy production etc.
The result of the HGP can be used for diagnosis of genetic disorders. If a gene??™s location is known, and we also know that a mutation in the gene can cause a disorder, the diagnosis can be made, even for a fetus. PCR or gel electrophoresis can be used for analyzing the DNA.
Gene therapy is another application of HGP, this is mainly to insert normal genes into patients??™ cells, and once the gene is there, it can perform its normal function, so the disorder of the patient is cured.
Despite the project itself, the new capabilities from the HGP is also applied into creating new energy sources. Scientists started the Microbial Genome Program to sequence the genomes of bacteria to produce energy, ???environmental remediation???, or ???toxic waste reduction???.[2]
In the application for Forensic Identification, the technology is used to identify criminal of a crime. If a segment of hair, blood, or skin is found at the crime scene, the examiner will look at some spots of its DNA and compare it to the suspects??™ DNA to find out the real criminal. Some sites on the human DNA have patterns that vary greatly from person to person, these are the loci. They are the places where will be examined. Data of 13 of the loci are collected, because each of them are very different from person to person, it is almost impossible to have two people who have the same data for all the 13 loci, so the right person responsible for the crime can be found.

The impact of HGP on the world
the most important impact of the HGP is it brought changes to the medical field. Now scientists have got more information about the human genome, so they can solve many problems relating to gene. Some genetic disorders can be early detected if the patient??™s genome is carefully studied. Gene therapy can cure the diseases caused by genetic problems. Other things such as the development of Pharmacogenomics also helped many people to live a better life.
But the HGP also may has some potential threat to our society. The first one is if everyone??™s sequenced, some of them may be unable to get a job or insurance because their genome show that they are more likely to get some detrimental diease. Some people have a concern that if one day the human genome are fully studied and understood, parents may have the choice to ???design??? the genome of their children, so they can have an ideal children, and that must bring many trouble to the world. The most horrible concern is the finding of HGP may help create a substance that can kill all the people in one particular race, because according to their result, the genomes of people of different race do have certain difference.
We believe that the finding of genome of human will go on, and the result of it will bring more and more different kinds of consequences to us, but no one knows whether or not they are good, it can only be told by the time.